Most adaptations will replace Conquest with Pestilence, or a similar apocalyptic agent, like Pollution, Genocide, Nuclear Holocaust, or Overpopulation. In the Bible Pestilence and Death are often understood as being the same being, and in some translations Death is named as Pestilence. Famine is also occasionally overlapped with the concept of Pestilence in some depictions, as a Walking Wasteland.

The only one of these actually named in the Bible is Death; the others are only identified by the horses they ride. The other names come from the tasks and powers they are assigned. The exact nature, role and purpose of the Horsemen has been the subject of centuries of theological debate - Conquest, for instance, is thought to be either a figure of incalculable evil, perhaps The Antichrist or Satan, setting out to conquer the world; or, he could be a benevolent being like Jesus or the Holy Spirit, and his "Conquest" or "Victory" could be the beginning of the final triumph of Good over Evil. note The text is unambiguous about the doom and destruction part, however, meaning that even in the best case scenario Holy Is Not Safe when it comes to the horsemen. The other three horsemen don't trigger quite as much discussion, but they aren't universally agreed upon either. Don't be surprised if the writer forgets about how they're not supposed to show up till the very end of the world.

Examples

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Anime

Digimon Adventure: The final Big Bad was Apocalymon, and he was responsible for the creation of a four member Quirky Miniboss Squad called the Dark Masters, whose arrival heralded the twisted reformatting of the Digital World into a brutal, lifeless place of oppression; while none of them are actual horsemen or horses, they can be construed as thematically connected to the Four Horsemen. They consisted of MetalSeadramon (probably Famine), Pinocchimon (most likely Pestilence), Mugendramon (War), and Piemon (Death).

Comic Books

X-Men villainApocalypse appropriately has had a rotating cast of minions under the names of the Four Horsemen, whose job was to wreak havoc in his name as a way of culling the weak from the strong. Several heroes have been brainwashed into serving him; Angel becoming Death and later Archangel is the best-known example. Most of his Horsemen join him by choice, however; in that case, Apocalypse recruits each one via a Deal with the Devil (like telling Autumn that he'd give her more attention than her neglectful parents to covince her become Famine, or offering to heal the Ill Boy Abraham Kieros and then making him War).

In the main Marvel Universe, Wolverine was kidnapped by Skrulls working with Apocalypse and brainwashed, turned into Death, too. He did it gambling that he would be able to break free somehow—and also to get the adamantium Sabretooth had recently been upgraded with away from him (Magneto had ripped out Logan's skeleton years earlier; his getting adamantium-laced bones back was part of the deal to become Death). He was even sent after The Hulk in order to subdue him, so he could be War. Hulk refused, but ended up as War at another time, leaving after hurting Rick Jones by accident.

After the M-Day event, Gambit voluntarily joined Apocalypse to become the new Death.

DC Comics recently introduced their Four Horsemen of Apokolips, tying them into Jack Kirby's New Gods mythos as primordial deities of the aforementioned evil planet, with the Horsemen themselves being mere vessels created to contain a fraction of their power.

In Strontium Dog, the Satan-figure created four beings modelled on the horsemen to watch over the desert of despair.

In the Dreamwave continuity version of Transformers Energon, Rhinox, Airazor, Cheetor and Terrorsaur got abducted by Unicron and turned into his Four Horsemen.

In the "Painting that Ate Paris" arc of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, the team encounter the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse (Oblivion or Nullity or Belgian sitcoms) at the bottom of an infinite regress of paintings inside the eponymous painting, each of which represent a different art school/style. (It's actually more confusing than it sounds.) The Horseman is finally defeated when the heroes get it to go through Dada, where it is turned into a rocking horse.

In Archie's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures series, the Four Horsemen made an appearance in a long miniseries of comics and eventually killed the Turtles' friends/friendly rivals, the Mighty Mutanimals (which included fan favorite Mondo Gecko).

Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse reveals that the Four Horsemen arrived a long time ago, but they liked drugs, sex, and junk food too much to bring themselves to do the whole "reap a quarter of the population" bit. Wormwood keeps them supplied with cocaine, hookers, cheese snacks, and a penthouse suite so that they stay too distracted to trigger the Apocalypse.

In Hellboy: The Fury, they make an appearance. And a timely one, as Hellboy is busy battling the creature intended to bring about Ragnarok. The four end up squaring off against a reincarnated King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

The horsemen make an appearance as a major obstacle for Image Comics' Deathblow.

In Elf, the four rangers of Central Park show up to destroy Santa Claus for putting them on the naughty list. The way they are depicted make them seem like they actually are the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Later in the novel, a group of Hell's Angels tags along, calling themselves Grievous Bodily Harm, Really Cool People, Cruelty to Animals and No-Alcohol Lager (he changes his name every time he thinks of something else he hates, and finally ends up as People Covered In Fish).

Biker: "'Ere, you're Hells Angels are you? What chapter you from then?"

Death:Revelations. Chapter six.

Pollution: Verses two to eight.

In Book 4 of The Immortals, the world is ravaged by the local equivalents of War, Famine and Pestilence. Given the option to try and stop one of the three, Daine and company choose Pestilence, as that one could cause the most long-term harm.

Robert Rankin's Brentford includes a pub called The Four Horsemen; its landlord is a devil worshipper with a Dorian Grey painting upstairs. (Other Brentford pubs include The Hands of Orlac and The Shrunken Head).

Naturally, after Discworld established Death, along with his pale horse Binky, not just as a recurring but as a main character, they had to have the other three show up. They would have ridden out in Sourcery, but they stopped at an inn and got drunk. Only Death could hold his liquor, and the other's horses were stolen, so Death had to ride out alone.

This is something of a subversion: after gathering together, the Four Horsemen decide they like the world too much and decide to try and save it from being destroyed. Hey, the prophesy just says they'll ride out; nothing in there says against whom.

In one of his better bits, when Twoflower meets the Four Horsemen, he teaches them to play Bridge. I bet War is an overbidder...

Terry Pratchett also mentions that it's not just the Apocalypse—many things have their four horsemen. The Four Horsemen of the Common Cold are Sniffles, Chesty, Nostril and Lack Of Tissues, for instance, and the Horsemen of Panic are Misinformation, Rumour, Gossip and Denial.

Two of them even started families. Death has his adopted daughter and her daughter with their own series. War married a Valkyrie and they had at least three children together; sons Panic and Terror and daughter Clancy.

The Heritage of Shannara books have Walker Boh fighting Shadowen demons who deliberately modeled themselves after the horsemen.

The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie features a pub with Death's horse from the Book of Revelation on the sign with multiple references to this trope. Not surprisingly, the place specializes in death-for-hire, in the form of murder by clever heavy metal poisoning.

The late Charles L. Grant's Millennium Quartet introduces one Horsemen per novel.

The Fifth Horseman (by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre) is a novel about a nuclear terrorist threat, which makes sense, as judicious application of nuclear weapons would lead to famine, pestilence (in the form of radiation poisoning), war, and death.

The Fifth Horseman: A Sleepy Hollow Legend (by Gregg Gonzalez) is a novel about a terrifying battle with the supernatural in the town of Sleepy Hollow, set over the course of September and October, one year in the late 1980s. The Headless Horseman itself is inhabited by Chaos, the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, who "brings anarchy, conspiracy, suspicion, paranoia, confusion, mistrust and doubt - all of which destroy man from the inside out." The Horseman is finally defeated when it is sucked from its physical body and confined in a certain crystal skull, which first has to be activated via a special ritual.

Pact has an incarnation of Conquest as a major antagonist, and it's noted that while he is one of several different incarnations of the concept, the idea behind the four horsemen of the apocalypse grants him a lot of power, and there are certain agencies interested in using that concept to their advantage who like to feed such individuals. Unfortunately, since he's based in Toronto, the narrative for him as one of the four horsemen is weak at best, and he himself is correspondingly relatively weak. This does not stop him from being extremely dangerous, especially given the interpretation of Conquest as "forceful subjugation," which makes Conquest, among other things, the god of torture.

Live-Action TV

In Babylon 5, Londo Mollari refers to his three, much-hated wives as "Pestilence", "Famine", and "Death". The viewer is left to infer that Londo is, by exclusion, War. Word of God confirms that this is quite deliberate.

Charmed featured them once, though they decided to go the biblical route and had Strife instead of Pestilence, as mentioned above, and War seemed to be their leader (as opposed to Death in most other media, assuming they even have any sort of hierarchy). It's hinted that they're responsible for every major disaster in history, and that any powerful warlock, demon, and possibly even human may be chosen by the Source to serve as a Horseman. The Source itself is also the only being capable of killing them, and routinely does so when the current incarnation of the quartet gives an unsatisfactory performance in their attempt to instigate the apocalypse (which the group that appeared in the episode treated like a business).

Season 6 of Dexter features the Doomsday Killer, who fashions his victims' bodies into tableaux based on the Book of Revelation. DDK manages to create The Four Horsemen by stitching the body parts of one victim onto four different mannequins, attaching the four complete "horsemen" to real life horses, then setting the horses (complete with Horsemen) free onto an unsuspecting downtown Miami.

Highlander had a group of Immortal villains that used this name, including, at one time, Duncan's friend Methos. Methos was Death, Kronos was Pestilence, Silas was War, and Caspian was Famine. It is explicitly stated that the Horsemen of the Bible were actually inspired by this Immortal group.

Methos: I killed. But I didn't just kill fifty, I didn't kill a hundred. I killed a thousand. I killed ten thousand! And I was good at it. And it wasn't for vengeance, it wasn't for greed. It was because... I liked it. Cassandra was nothing. Her village was nothing. Do you know who I was? I was Death. Death — Death on a horse. When mothers warned their children that the monster would get them, that monster was me. I was the nightmare that kept them awake at night.

Red Dwarf, though there they were called "Gunmen of the Apocalypse," and they were actually computer viruses that had infected both the Navicomp and Kryten- who happened to envision his struggle with the virus as a Western.

Supernatural introduced the Four Horsemen in the 5th season as servants of Lucifer preparing the world for the apocalypse, with their steeds replaced by cars, named after horses.

Famine is an incredibly creepy, rotten-toothed old man in a wheelchair, who pushes people's desires Up to Eleven so they'll gorge themselves, die, and he can eat their souls. Interestingly, it isn't always food he makes people crave, it could be attention, drugs, money, sex, alcohol, or whatever their personal vice is. Was driven around in a black Cadillac Escalade. He used to be healthier, but the Haber process (which massively increased the world's food supply) crippled him.

Pestilence appeared in "Two Minutes To Midnight", where he is amusing himself breeding super-viruses in a residential care home. It is revealed that he spread Swine Flu in order to distribute a vaccine which is really the Croatoan virus. Very Chessmaster-y. He drives a green '72 AMC Hornet wagon license plate: SIKN TIRD ("Sick and Tired"). Portrayed by Matt Frewer, who played him as swinging between cool and collected (chilled) and raging fury (hot/fevered).

Death was summoned by Lucifer from where he was bound beneath the earth in "Abandon All Hope", and remained offscreen for a long time. He finally appeared on-screen in the episode: "Two Minutes To Midnight". He drives a white 1959 Cadillac. The color difference was lampshaded by Alastair who said Death doesn't actually ride a pale horse. License plate: BUH* BYE and walks with a cane. A man drops dead in the street after bumping into him, and an entire pizzeria dies just because he fancies a slice. Dean talks to him extensively, and Death reveals that he is at least as old as God, if not older (since he says that neither he nor God can remember any more), and that in the end even God will be reaped by him. Rather than being a willing servant of Lucifer (as the others are implied to be), Death reveals that he is far more powerful, and only serves because he is bound to Lucifer by a spell. He willingly gives Dean his ring in exchange for a promise that the latter will do anything in order to return Lucifer to his prison. He is portrayed by the skeletal Julian Richings.

The Young Ones featured the four horsemen Famine, Pestilence, Death, And... The Other One. They mostly sit around, bored to tears, playing Travel Scrabble and listening to Famine complain about how hungry he is. All except for Death, who is dead.

In the Season 4 finale of Misfits, it turns out that Nadine's superpower is to bring about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse when she sees people sinning, although in this version they are ninjas on bicycles. The only way to stop them from killing everybody is to kill Nadine.

The Headless Horseman is interpreted as Death. And if he reclaims his skull, he'll be able to summon his companions and bring about The End of the World as We Know It. It turns out to be Ichabod's former friend Abraham Van Brunt, who sold his soul and services to Moloch in order to gain revenge of Ichabod for "stealing" Katrina from him.

Conquest/Pestilence (who's actually referred to by both names), shows up in the episode "John Doe". It turns out he caused the disappearance of Roanoke Colony, as he infected them with a plague intended to kick-start the Apocalypse. They only survived by being guided to a safe place where Time Stands Still by the spirit of Virginia Dare. In the present day, Pestilence lures a young boy out of the safe zone into Sleepy Hollow to try and spread the plague, which would allow him to spread across the world. Fortunately, when Ichabod and Abbie return the boy, it seems Pestilence is banished again.

The first season finale deals with the heroes attempting to stop the rise of the Horseman of War. Unfortunately, he's already loose, as it turns out he's their supposed ally, Henry Parish the Sin-Eater, who's actually Ichabod and Katrina's son Jeremy Crane, who agreed to serve Moloch in order to escape being Buried Alive.

The line "seven horses seem to be on the mark" from the Doors' song Love Her Madly is most likely not meant to be a reference to the Apocalypse, but some people think it is anyway. The song is about being in love with a girl who is leaving (or at least threatening to). Maybe that is the end of the world to some people?

Saviour Machine, who explicitly wrote songs about the Book of Revelations, wrote a song called "Behold A Pale Horse" which describes the terrible state of the world after The Horsemen ride out.

The Manowar songs "The Warrior's Prayer" and "Glory, Majesty, Unity" both talk about 4 mysterious riders who challenge and defeat the combined mights of several armies. "Revelation (Death's Angel)" is based on the book of Revelation, and describes the "four horsemen rid[ing]" and the destroyed Earth they leave in their wake.

An unfinished music video for the Gorillaz song Rhinestone Eyes briefly shows the horsemen riding across a nondescript plane, with the Boogieman trotting behind them on a donkey.

Running Wild's "Apocalyptic Horsemen", like many songs from their earlier days on darker (or downright evil) things, portray them in a positive light.

Coldplay's "Death And All His Friends" is probably about this ("No, I don't want a battle from beginning to end, I don't wanna cycle or recycle revenge, I don't wanna to follow death and all of his friends").

Professional Wrestling

WCW, and the NWA before it, had a long-running heel stable called The Four Horsemen. It was led in all its incarnations by Ric Flair, although the name was coined by Arn Anderson. Of course, they were not actually depicted as the Horsemen Of The Apocalypse; the name was simply a symbolic reference. Their gang sign was holding up a hand, all four fingers on each spread apart (although, strangely, sometimes they'd hold up both hands in the 4-finger sign; with all four doing this, that of course signifies the coming of the 32 Horsemen of the Apocalypse).

Religion

The Bible's Book of Revelation is the Trope Maker, making this Older Than Feudalism. Interestingly enough, the biblical Horsemen combined Pestilence and Death into the final horseman, with War being the second horseman and Famine being the third. The first horseman was Conquest (or possibly Strife), commonly believed to be the Antichrist. The idea of having Pestilence as a Horseman of the Apocalypse is inspired partially by the terrible suffering of the Black Death (a plague which killed roughly one third of Europe's population) and partially to avoid Cast Speciation with War. Mostly the former.

"I looked, and there was a white horse! Its rider had a bow; a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer....And out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another; and he was given a great sword.....I looked, and there was a black horse! Its rider held a pair of scales in his hand, and I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, 'A quart of wheat for a day's pay, and three quarts of barley for a day's pay, but do not damage the olive oil and the wine!'...I looked and there was a pale green horse! Its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed with him; they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and pestilence, and by the wild animals of the earth." from Revelation 6; the opening of the seven seals.

Some Biblical Archaeologists have theorized that Revelation is actually intended as a coded message to the Jewish people to resist the attempts by the current Caesar (usually believed to be Nero, but some think it may have been Caligula) to enforce worship himself on their people and to pray for the destruction of the Roman Empire, that a Jewish kingdom may be built from the ruins. In this theory, the Horsemen are actually allegories for the four most powerful enemies of the Roman Empire.

The fourth World Book for Rifts primarily concerned the arrival of the Four Horsemen to Earth (Africa, precisely), and a war between a gathering of heroes and an Empire of demons and monsters to keep them from merging together to form a demon capable of wiping out the entire planet.

One Dungeons & Dragons supplement that contains rules for four epic-level, near-godlike fey beings: the Harbinger (Death), the supreme incarnation of entropy and of life leading inevitably to death; the Scourge (War), the incarnation of life's tendency to wage war against itself from the microscopic level on up; the Blight (Pestilence), the incarnation of the destructive nature of communication, and the Bereft (Famine), the incarnation of lack-it is equal parts thirst, hunger, lust, etc-the incarnation of all un-fulfillable needs.

Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary has a set of Four Horsemen templates, envisioning the 4Hs not a monsters in their own right, but as possessing spirits. It can be a little weird seeing Death as CR 7.

Pathfinder has the Horsemen as the nigh-omnipotent leaders of the Neutral Evil daemons. All represent the end of life in some form or another. Szuriel, the Horse(wo)man of War; Trelmarixian, the Horseman of Famine; Apollyon, the Horseman of Pestilence; and Charon, the Horseman of Death (representing the inevitable death of old age). There is also a fifth horseman, the Oinodaemon, whom the others overthrew.

Geist: the Sin-Eaters has each one of the five Thresholds symbolically claimed by one of the Horsemen. It actually works out; in Revelations, it says that Hades rides behind Death, so there are technically five horsemen. Each one ties closely to the means by which the Sin-Eater died; for instance, the Torn, who died by violent means, are favored of the Red Horseman.

In the Ghostbusters RPG, the adventure module "ApoKERMIS Now!" has the Four Frog-Riders of the ApoKermis, who are meant to keep the party going until the world ends. Their names are Feast (in charge of the party's snacks), Merry (in charge of the party's music and atmosphere), Cheers (in charge of any drinking going on at the party), and Dancer (in charge of the dancing).

The Chaos gods from Warhammer and Warhammer40000 are analogous to the Four Horsemen: Pestilence is Nurgle, War is Khorne, Death is Tzeentch, and Famine is Slaanesh.

Meanwhile, Warhammer has a Hellish Horse that is outright called "The Steed of the Apocalypse". Part of the requirements for becoming the Everchosen of Chaos is to break him and make him let you ride him. Yes, in Warhammer, there is only one Horseman of the Apocalypse... and that's all they need!

Munchkin Apocalypse contains a monster named "The Four Horsies of the Apocalypse", which features a My Little Pony-style depiction.

Video Games

In Sam & Max Season 2: Ice Station Santa, the Freelance Police must collect a full set of Horsemen of the Apocalypse action figures in order to perform an exorcism.

Curiously, the primary adversaries of Knights of the Old Republic 2 fit into these archetypes. Atris as Pestilence (having fallen to The Corruption), Sion as War (The Brute who deals with every problem with his lightsaber), Nihilus as Famine (a hole in the universe that is eternally hungry) and Kreia as Death (her ultimate goal is to destroy the Force, and through it all life).

The Shin Megami Tensei series maintains the full stable as part of its pantheon of demons. While their given names are White Rider, Red Rider, Black Rider, and Pale Rider, they are identified in the Compendium as the proper representations of Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. As the world is almost always ending in the SMT franchise, the presence of these guys is almost expected.

The first to ever appear is the Pale Rider in Shin Megami Tensei I, along with fellow Fiends Daisoujou and David. He and the others appear with a 1/256 spawn rate, and their rare drops are the finest weapons of each path. The Rider's is the Angel's Trumpet, of the Law Path.

In Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, the player can encounter the horsemen in special battles on a new moon or as part of various sidequests given out by the game's resident Louis Cypher. The catch is that they are directly referred to the reward items gained from beating them (i.e. The Crown of Victory for beating the white rider, The Sword of War for the red, etc.).

Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE also has these bosses, albeit you have to use Ultimate Summon Orbs to, well, summon them. Oddly enough, three of the Riders are found in one dungeon, and the Pale Rider is all by himself in another.note They are found in, respectively: Suginami Tunnels and Celu Tower.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey features them again, as hidden bosses each in a different sector of the Schwarzwelt. They can be fought and summoned using the Fiend Converter.

Shin Megami Tensei IV has all four of them, plus most of the Fiend race. However, in a Shout-Out to Shin Megami Tensei I, their spawn rate is 1/256, their HP's shot to the roof, and have Artificial Brilliance allowing them to bombard enemies into oblivion with Antichthon should any dare to eat any of their precious Press Turns. They also appear in much weaker forms, sans Antichthon, in a Domain in Infernal Tokyo, as part of a Challenge Quest.

Beyond the main four, there are also several other signs of the apocalypse that can show up depending on the game, such as Trumpeter (the trumpeting angel signifying the beginning of the apocalypse), or Lady Harlot (the Whore of Babylon herself).

You fight them in the game Hexen II. Interestingly, Death is only the second boss you fight.

Same reasoning as in Nethack below. The very fact that you're fighting them makes War the heavyweight (while having the most straightforward fighting style).

The game Afterlife, a sim game by LucasArts, had "the Four Surfers of the Apocalypso". Yeah. They would ride waves of magma to destroy your simulated heaven and hell if you stay in debt for too long. Their descriptions are Surfer Dude versions of their Biblical introductions.

Total War: Attila references them as part of its trailers, each represented by a faction that fulfilled an aspect during that time such as the Eastern Roman Empire (Conquest),the Sassanid Empire (War), Visigothic hordes (Faminie) and finally the Huns (Death).

City of Heroes has a group of elite bosses named after the Four Horsemen, but they're actually extra-dimensional pseudo-alien invaders in giant floating egg suits with only vaguely thematic powers.

Runescape has the Security Stronghold, a dungeon accessible to all players and designed to teach players how to keep their accounts secure. Each of the dungeon's four levels is named and themed after one of the Horsemen, in the order: War, Famine, Pestilence, Death.

Though they do not actually make an appearance, they are heavily referenced to in the 2011 Deathcon II quest, where the player must arrange statues associated with the Horsemen and place them on plinths. Also, Horses the Chicken, the pet of an NPC named Frank who helped found the Horsemen Clan, has transformations based on the Horsemen's attributes.

World of Warcraft has the Four Horseman in Naxxramas, a group of Death Knights who are the final boss fight of the Military Wing of the raid. It's generally agreed that each one is based off a classic horseman, though people aren't entirely sure which.

Thane Korth'azz seems most similar to the Horseman of War due to using fire magic, Sir Zeliek is most similar to the Horseman of Conquest due to having a white horse and Holy spells, and Baron Rivendare and Lady Blaumeux are unclear for Death and Famine. The pre-Wrath of the Lich King Four Horsemen were more obvious. Thane best resembled Death for his green-colored horse, Blaumeux best resembled Famine, Zeliek was still best fit for Conquest, and the now-missing Highlord Mograine best represented War for his red horse and fire magic that uses actual fire rather than meteors like Thane Korth'azz.

Of course we forget that Death is followed closely behind by Hades and considering how Baron Rivendare was leading behind the scenes in Stratholme as Kel'Thuzad's second in command he could embody Hades.

Darksiders has you play an incredibly pissed-off War in an Apocalypse gone awry. In this setting however, Famine and Pestilence Conquest have been replaced by Fury and Strife.

Darksiders II has you playing as Death during the events of the first game.

In Nethack, once you have the Amulet of Yendor and make it to the Astral Plane, three of the Horsemen show up—Death, Pestilence, and Famine, of which Death is the most annoying, Pestilence the most scary, and Famine the biggest pushover. The fourth horseman, War, is the player.

Web RPG AdventureQuest recently began to introduce the concept of a Demipower group (weaker than gods or the beings who control the elements, but higher than any normal human and most Avatars) known as the Riders, specifically designed to destroy (or, unusually, create) worlds. War is a fightable boss who becomes stronger as the fight goes on and his HP drops, with Pestilence being alluded to in a cutscene when someone suggests smashing the altar that serves as their power source (it didn't work). The heroes eventually break War's altar... by having two draconic gods breathe on it simultaneously. It knocks out one of the summoners and still leaves War with enough power to fight you a second time.

The MMORPG AdventureQuest Worlds gave us a group of undead centaurs known as the Horsemen of the Undead Apocalypse, some of Dage the Evil's most loyal servants. They showed up on Dage's 2014 birthday event, and defeating each of them seven times (once per day, of course) would reward you with a character page badge for each one.

Although they are named after demons, the Elemental Lords of Final Fantasy IV are clearly meant to be analogues of the Horsemen. They do help end at least one or two civilizations on the planet, to boot.

Fallout Tactics has a random encounter in which you can meet the Four Horsemen of the Post-Apocalypse, standing around a campfire, talking. They just stand around and exchange dialogue, probably because they don't have much to do now. they are labeled as 'almost dead', you can attack them, but they have no equipment, lots of hitpoints and give little experience.

If you Kick the Dog thoroughly enough in the RTS Lords Of The Realm III, you may just end up recruiting four mysterious knights who are ridiculously overpowered... To make things even more awesome, if you go the other way around and end up as a pious, honorable, chivalrous lord to end all lords, you instead get Micheal, Raphael, Gabriel and Uriel. For a game that is otherwise fairly realistic, this either ruins everything or makes the hard work totally worth it.

Note that the horsemen and archangels only appear after about two hours has passed in a single game. They're absurdly powerful for the purpose of breaking the stalemate and getting the game over with (likely in favor of the slightly stronger player).

The Binding of Isaac has the Four Horsemen as random boss fights after you beat the game once. Each one has a chance of dropping a piece of Meat Boy, who will follow you around and deal damage. It's also possible to meet the Headless Horseman.

Conquest also appears in the expansion pack. A Dummied Out achievement even refers to him as a forgotten horseman.

The appropriately titled Apocalypse game on the Playstation starred Bruce Willis (Yes, him) as the only man for the job to stop the upcoming apocalypse by defeating the four horsemen. War strangely reminded him a lot of his ex-wife.

Bizarrely, the Four Horsemen of that game were Death, Pestilence, War, and Beast. Whatever Beast is.

The Sin's City mission tier in Superhero City presents the Four Horsemen (Conquest, War, Famine and Death) as villains for your hero character to fight. Conquest has the power to instill the desire to rule over all things in humans within his vicinity; War, to instill bloodlust; Famine, to instill hunger to the point of the victims eating anything (including human flesh); Death, to drain the life-force from everything in her immediate area.

In Chaos Rings II the Four Horsemen — Conquest, War, Famine, and Death — are the agents of the Destroyer Neron dedicated to ending the world. It's all a complete lie. They are actually the agents of the Creator Amon dedicated to spreading destruction to rekindle humanity's belief in Amon (which he needs to survive) through fear. They can also fuse together to create Herald.

Although they don't all have mounts, Ashnard's top generals in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance are called the Four Riders. Makes sense for someone intent on releasing a Sealed Evil in a Can. That said, the sequel suggests that the previous king had Four Riders for a nobler purpose.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are monsters from the Netherworld in Treasure Of The Rudras, fought in Sion's scenario. Weirdly, their names have nothing to do with the original Horsemen.

Four of the Champions from the Shadow Isles in League of Legends seem to be inspired by the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Mordekaiser is Conquest, or going by his association to sickness and malady, Pestilence; Hecarim is War, seeing as how he's a Blood Knight and his title is "the Shadow of War"; Thresh is associated with Famine due to his weapon and the fact that Famine is an extremely slow and torturous killer, fitting Thresh's theme; Karthus is, obviously, Death due to him being an Omnicidal Maniac who wants to bring death to everything.

Also, the Champion Yorick's skills are references to the Horsemen as well. They are: Omen of War, Omen of Pestilence, Omen of Famine and Omen of Death.

Webcomics

The "Meanwhile in..." Saturday filler arc in Sluggy Freelance has Satan send the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse out to destroy the world. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective) they run into the Four Horsemen of Inconvenience: Indigestion, Insomnia, Impotence, and Incompetence. Death is left impotent, Disease can't get any sleep, Famine's stomach hurts, and War fell off his horse and broke his arm. They don't feel much like destroying the world after that.

The horsemen are present in Mountain Time, though as Paul, Chris, Barry and Bertram (complete with a shout-out to Nethack). They're short one horse, though.

Team NChick did this to themselves for laughs. Lindsay (the Nostalgia Chick) is war because she's apparently scary when she's angry, Elisa (The Makeover Fairy and Dr. Tease) is Death, Nella is Pestilence and Kali (the puppy) is Famine.

In The Gungan Council, Regnum In Potestas, a Sith faction, ran off of this idea by having the horsemen leading the faction.

Virtual Pet website Chicken Smoothie released a series of horses themed after the Four Horsemen for Halloween in 2011. Unusually for a website normally aimed at younger kids and preteen girls, the designs of the four horses were surprisingly grotesque, especially Pestilence. They were explicitly identified as "not for the faint of heart" when they were released.

War: SCP-993, a children's television show host named "Bobble the Clown" that brainwashes children under ten to become murderers, torturers, and cannibals.

Pestilence: SCP-027, an unknown phenomenon currently possessing a man, who attracts vermin to him.

Death: SCP-053, a young girl whom prolonged exposure to causes people to become homicidal (with any that try to kill her instantly dying). What's more, the Pale Horse she rides is SCP-682, an indestructible reptile that hates all life.

This video presents a hilarious Deconstructive Parody of the concept; thanks to all the advances in medicine and peace agreements, the Horsemen have been reduced to a bunch of retired losers screwing around in suburbia.

Western Animation

They turned up in an episode of The Real Ghostbusters, when an order of monks accidentally loses a Book Sealed With Seven Seals. Centuries later, the book is purchased by Janine, and she breaks the seals, thinking the book harmless reading material, and so prematurely released the Four Horsemen. The Ghostbusters are called in as a desperate last resort as the Horsemen begin ushering in the Apocalypse. Not surprisingly, they find that their traps and proton packs are virtually useless, but they eventually do manage to contain the horsemen long enough to reapply the broken seals and return things to normal.

You know the caption underneath the picture? Well, that's what Peter Venkman called them.

In X-Men: Evolution Season 4 Charles Xavier (Death), Storm (Famine), Magneto (War) and Mystique (Pestilence) are taken complete control of by Apocalypse to be his "four horsemen" guarding his nodes of power across the earth so he can enact the grand finale battle for the series. And turn everyone into mutants. Each of the controlled mutants representing one of the four horsemen of Apocalypse. Calling it the Apocalypse makes it sound like it's a time and not a person. Unfortunately Rogue was stopped from touching Apocalypse or things would have gone very differently (or Rogue would have been turning everyone into mutants instead).

Similarly, in the original X-Men we had Apocalypse recruiting and then commanding the original Horsemen: Kieros/War, Autumn/Famine, Plague/Pestilence, and Angel-then-Archangel/Death.

Robot Chicken had a My Little Pony commercial based on their four horses.

Pestilence appears during an episode of Squidbillies, to usher in the end of days. Amusingly, the Cuyler's aren't impressed by him, and actually mock him.

Early: War, Famine, Death, and grasshoppers. One of those don't quite belong, do they?

One episode of Super Jail's latest (2014) season featured bizarre stories from tabloids suddenly becoming real. The episode ends with the arrival of the Four Horsemen and stops there; luckily for the prison, the show has Negative Continuity.

A group of LGBTQ Chilean artists and intellectuals, led by the late writer and poet Pedro Lemebel, referred to themselves as "Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis" ("Mares of the Apocalypse") in the Chile of the late eighties/early nineties.

Chris Dahlberg, Jim Preziosi, Eric Treadaway, and Eric "Cornboy" Mayse are "The Four Horsemen" of toy sculpting. They've done everything from Spawn to the modern He-Man toys, and also own their own studio now.

The four receivers of the Denver Broncos: Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker, Wes Welker and Julius Thomas.

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